The rent roll still clears today’s ICR. The tax card from April 2027 does not look the same. Property income rates move to 24%, 44% and 49%. A bridging loan that assumed a personally held landlord would sit quietly until refinance now needs a sale diary or a corporate structure story that survives the print.

HM Treasury’s Budget 2026 overview of tax legislation and rates, published on 28 October, sets those property rates from 6 April 2027 across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Budget 2026 document says Budget 2025 already lifted savings and property rates by two percentage points from that date. Today’s Budget adds a further two. No rabbit on residential SDLT bands. Credit still prices the exit that funds, not the speech that did not cut stamp duty.

StatusKWO underwrites short commercial facilities for professional landlords, investors and corporate SPVs. Main-home owner-occupier lending stays outside that book. Published terms currently start at a monthly rate of 1.25%, with a 2% entry fee, a 1.5% exit fee, LTV up to 85%, advances from £10,000 to £10,000,000+ and terms up to 16 months. None of those figures softens a personal tax path that hardens before the bridge matures.

A tax print that hits personal rent rolls before the next valuation

Budget day files do not fail on slogans. They fail when the borrower still plans a personally taxed hold while the take-out letter, the board price and the ICR all assume yesterday’s net.

The Negotiator’s same-day housing write-up flagged the extra two points on rental income and the absence of a stamp duty cut. HM Treasury’s Budget news release puts the same savings and property rise in plain English and says 84% of taxpayers see no bill increase. That majority line does not rescue a higher-rate landlord whose net rent falls while interest on a short facility still accrues.

Start the pack on the holding vehicle. Personal name. Joint names. Limited company. Partnership. Put the tax year that matters next to the bridge term. A twelve-month facility that ends before April 2027 still needs an exit that works after the rate step if refinance or sale slips. Hope is not a calendar.

Yesterday’s ONS completed-sales and private rents note already showed softer UK house-price growth at 0.9% beside rents still up 3.8%. Budget day stacks a personal tax step on that split. Firm rents do not pay a higher personal rate for free. Soft sale comps do not forgive a late exit.

What 24, 44 and 49 percent actually change from April 2027

OOTLAR is blunt. From 2027 to 2028 the property basic rate is 24%, the property higher rate is 44% and the property additional rate is 49%. The change takes effect on 6 April 2027. Scotland and Wales keep room to set property income rates under their own powers. England, Wales and Northern Ireland take the OOTLAR path unless devolved choices diverge later.

That is not a corporation tax rewrite. It lands on property income taxed on the personal side. Brokers who blur personal landlord income with SPV corporation tax get a messy first call. Write which regime applies. Attach the accountant note if the structure is mid-change. Do not make credit guess from a Companies House number alone.

Budget 2025 already put a two-point rise on the same April 2027 date. Today’s further two points are the headline that borrowers heard. The desk cares about the net cash that remains for ICR, living costs and interest cover once the higher rate bites. A rent roll that looked comfortable at last year’s tax card can thin without a single void.

Third-party reporting also tightens around property income. The Budget document points to consultation on expanding third-party property income data for HMRC. Underwriting does not wait for that consultation to finish. It already wants bank statements, deposit protection proof and a rent schedule that matches tenancies. Our tenancy and deposit pack and portfolio rent-roll note still sit in the same zip.

Do not invent a special Budget rate for bridging interest. Quote StatusKWO’s published schedule. Quote the named take-out. Keep tax advice with the borrower’s accountant. The specialist question is simpler. Does the exit still fund when personal net income falls and sale buyers stay selective?

Personal landlord sales versus SPV and corporate borrower files

Personal landlords who decide to sell create sale-led bridges. That can be healthy demand. It can also be a queue of thin exits if every file uses the same optimistic board price.

Our sale-exit evidence note wants a diary, STC proof and a Plan B. Budget day makes Plan B louder. Refinance onto a term BTL product still faces a shelf that Moneyfacts recently put near six percent on five-year averages. Sale buyers still face the completed-price path from the ONS print. A personal landlord who needs cash out before April 2027 must show which route clears first.

Corporate and SPV borrowers sit on a different tax story. Corporation tax and extraction still matter. The new personal property rates do not automatically rewrite an SPV P&L. Credit still wants the company pack. Our SPV and Companies House evidence note covers filings, PSCs and charges. Our personal guarantee pack covers director support when the facility needs it. Mixing a personal tax scare into an SPV file without showing the actual borrower entity wastes a day.

Portfolio finance books need a schedule, not an average tax moan. List which titles sit in personal names and which sit in companies. List which assets are sale candidates and which stay for refinance. One personally held flat with a soft London completed-comp story should not vanish inside a ten-asset workbook that says “Budget fine”.

Transfers into companies are not a free lunch inside a bridge term. SDLT, financing and timing all move. If the borrower plans a restructure, say what has already completed and what remains. A promised SPV that does not yet own the title is not security. Charge what exists.

Auction buyers who pick up personally held stock under a 28-day clock still need the same honesty. Auction finance clears when memorandum, deposit and legal pack evidence travel with the tax and exit story, not when the catalogue blurb promises “investor opportunity” after Budget day.

High Value Council Tax Surcharge clocks from April 2028

OOTLAR confirms the High Value Council Tax Surcharge for residential properties worth £2 million or more, with changes from April 2028, carried forward from the Budget 2025 announcement into Finance Bill 2026-27. The Budget document adds deferrals, discounts and exemptions, plus a 100% premium on properties left empty and unoccupied for 12 months or more. HVCTS applies in England.

That clock sits beyond many short bridges. It still shapes sale and refinance behaviour on high-value titles now. Empty premium risk pushes owners to occupy, let or sell. A vacant £2m-plus asset on a works bridge needs a letting or sale path that does not trip empty rules later. Say the occupancy plan. Attach the insurance schedule that matches it.

Do not treat HVCTS as a nationwide tax on every bridge. Most books sit under £2m. The files that touch the band need a sentence on page one. Value. Occupancy. Whether the borrower expects surcharge, deferral or exemption. Silence on a £2.4m vacant title reads as avoidance of the obvious.

ATED uprating by 3.5% for 2027-28, in line with September 2026 CPI, is a separate enveloped-dwelling line in the Budget document. Corporate-held high-value dwellings already live with ATED. Put the right regime on the right title. Do not paste HVCTS language onto an ATED company by habit.

Your First Home and brownfield BNG when development exits need buyers

Supply measures matter when the exit is a sale into the first-time buyer pool or a small brownfield build. They do not rewrite a bridge rate card.

The Budget confirms £4.7 billion for Your First Home, aimed at around 70,000 households, with final scheme detail and a spring 2027 start in the wider housing messaging. The Budget document sets income caps at £110,000 outside London and £140,000 inside London, with inner and outer London price caps at £650,000 and £500,000, a 2.5% deposit requirement and up to 20% equity loans. Developers who sign up face a contribution on a sliding scale.

That helps some new-build sales. It does not clear every GDV. Price caps and income caps cut the eligible pool. A development finance residual aimed at open-market private buyers still needs comps that work without assuming every purchaser uses the scheme. Put the shared-equity assumption in the appraisal only when the units and price points fit.

Biodiversity Net Gain changes also land for small residential brownfield sites. The Budget document exempts residential brownfield developments up to 1.5 hectares in England from BNG requirements, with timeline detail still to follow in the full response. That can trim cost and delay on small conversions and infill. It is not a planning consent. Our planning decision notice pack still wants the decision, conditions and discharge evidence before pricing hardens.

Social and affordable housing capital rises by a further £1.5 billion in the Budget narrative, taking longer-term programme investment above £40 billion over ten years on the government’s figures. Specialist private bridging rarely funds that programme directly. It can fund adjacent private stock, auction lots and small developer cash-flow gaps while public programmes move. Keep the product match honest.

Refinance and sale Plan B when fixes still sit near six percent

Budget day did not cut the retail mortgage shelf. Five-year averages near six percent still sit in last week’s Moneyfacts story. A refinance Plan B that quoted 5.4% in September needs a fresh AIP dated after today’s speech, not a screenshot from the week before.

Sale Plan A needs the same refresh. Completed prices grew only 0.9% in the year to August on the ONS and Land Registry print. London flats fell 5.0% annually. A personally held landlord selling into that market to escape a 2027 tax step can still clear. They clear faster with a priced agent, a realistic ask and a bridge term that matches the diary.

Rebridge demand may rise if sales stall and personal sellers refuse to cut. That is not automatic approval. Credit wants the reason the first exit missed, the new clock and the cash left for interest. A second bridge that only buys time against the same board price usually fails twice.

Interest still compounds while politics settles. Sixteen months is the published maximum term on StatusKWO’s schedule. Many files want shorter. Budget measures that bite in April 2027 or April 2028 do not justify an open-ended hold. Name the month the sale completes or the take-out funds. Then stress a slip of sixty to ninety days.

Brokers serving professional clients should separate regulated advice from commercial packaging. StatusKWO’s broker route and decision in principle engine are built for speed on commercial files. They are not a substitute for tax counsel on personal property rates.

What brokers should put on page one after Budget day

Keep page one dull and complete.

Borrower name and entity. Personal, joint or limited company. Title number and address. Freehold or leasehold. Purchase, refinance, works or sale bridge. Gross and net loan. Term. Exit route with dates. Current rent and void. Whether property income is taxed personally under the new 24%, 44% and 49% path from April 2027. Whether any title sits at or above £2m with HVCTS relevance from April 2028. Occupancy status for empty-premium risk. Named take-out lender or named agent. Link to the rent roll, tenancy papers, SPV filings and sale diary already in the zip.

Then stop writing essays about the Chancellor. The speech is public. The file is not.

If the borrower is selling because of the tax step, say so. Credit would rather price a clear sale than decode a refinance story that collapses when net rent thins. If the borrower is moving assets into a company, say what completed before offer and what remains. If nothing changed except the headline, say the hold continues and show why ICR and exit still work.

Auction packs need the Budget lines only where they change buyer behaviour or empty-property risk. Legal pack, memorandum and deposit evidence still decide whether a 28-day completion funds. Tax colour without title colour wastes the short clock.

Development packs should say whether Your First Home or the small-site BNG exemption sits inside the appraisal. If not, leave them out. Fake demand assumptions fail at monitoring.

Frequently asked questions

Does Budget 2026 change StatusKWO bridging rates?

No. Published commercial terms still start at a monthly rate of 1.25%, with a 2% entry fee, a 1.5% exit fee, LTV up to 85%, loans from £10,000 to £10,000,000+ and terms up to 16 months. Budget tax measures change borrower cash flow and exit behaviour. They do not rewrite that schedule by themselves.

Do the new property income tax rates apply to limited company landlords?

OOTLAR’s 24%, 44% and 49% property rates apply to property income taxed under the personal property income tax rules from 6 April 2027 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Company landlords still sit primarily under corporation tax and extraction rules. Put the correct borrower entity on page one and attach the accountant note if the structure is changing mid-bridge.

Is there a stamp duty cut for investment purchases in Budget 2026?

There was no broad residential SDLT rate cut for investors in the Budget materials cited above. OOTLAR covers narrower SDLT points such as group relief clawback timing, LGPS pooling relief and the already-announced removal of SDLT on rent under assured tenancies. Underwrite purchase costs on current SDLT rules unless your solicitor confirms a specific relief that fits the trade.

Should every high-value bridge wait for HVCTS detail?

No. HVCTS for £2m-plus homes in England is confirmed from April 2028 with deferrals, discounts, exemptions and an empty-home premium in the Budget document. Short facilities still complete before that date. Files on vacant or borderline high-value titles should state occupancy and surcharge risk now rather than wait for every secondary regulation.

Can Your First Home replace a private sale exit on a development bridge?

Only where unit prices, buyer income caps and scheme timing fit. The Budget confirms £4.7 billion of support aimed at around 70,000 households with London and non-London income caps and London price caps set out in the Budget document. Treat it as a possible demand channel for eligible new-build stock, not a blanket take-out for every residual.